Green Lantern: A Standard Mission
by Slipspace Anomaly
Summary: Green Lantern John Stewart of Space Sector 2814 has been given his latest assignment. For anyone else, it would have been impossible. For the former United States Marine, it was just another day wearing the Glowing Green.


It was a standard mission for a Green Lantern Corps. Officer. A perp had been tracked to his current hideout. A Green Lantern was going to apprehend him, process him, and turn him over to the relevant authorities. Of course, standard for a Green Lantern was not what most law enforcement agencies would consider standard. For example, this particular "perp" was a warlord with a fleet of warships and was guilty of genocide on four different planets. Billions had died at his command. Billions more would die unless he, and the armies with which he had crushed entire governments, was stopped. Naturally, only one Green Lantern was sent. Only one was needed.

Green Lantern John Stewart of Space Sector 2814 looked at his target through the scope of his sniper rifle. It was not the rifle he had used in the United States Marine Corps. Nor was it, technically, a rifle at all. It was, like all of Johns weapons, a construct generated by his power ring. It was a physical manifestation of his will, given shape by his imagination. While some, like Green Lantern and amateur artist Kyle Raynor, produced constructs of dazzling shape and complexity, John always fell back on the forms of the tried and true equipment that had gotten him through hell back on earth.

Of course, he was no longer on earth, a fact reinforced by the impressive number of warships threatening to obscure his view of Warlord Okeer's personal dreadnaught. He went over the plan in his head for the thousandth time, checking for every variable, every possible setback. This op required precision to be pulled off correctly.

After a pause to ready himself, Stewart enacted Phase One of the operation: Boarding the enemy vessel. He used his ring to push the space debris he was concealed upon toward his target. It was a grueling trip, not in complexity, but in anxiety. Despite its great power John had never been able to use the ring to make himself invisible or otherwise undetectable. It was all he could due to mask his presence from the thermal, sonic, and other sensors that were sure to bombard his little piece of junk, a bit of wreckage from Okeer's latest conquest. It took hours of patiently waiting, making micro-adjustments to his course, and desperately shouting inside his mind for potentially curious ships to ignore him. All throughout he never lost his cool, never allowed his nerves to rise into to panic, and eventually he came right up against the target ship's hull.

John used his ring to cut his way inside, at the same time creating a seal around himself to prevent depressurization in the area he was entering. He emerged into a waste disposal lock, a place where there would be little in the way of security but where he would be able, with a few discrete cuts through the bulkheads, to enter the ship unnoticed. Stewart knew this because he had spent hours pouring over the blueprints for this particular model of warship looking for weaknesses and formulating his plan. The blueprints had been a generous gift from the Seinar Corporation, which manufactured said warship, although said generosity was overshadowed somewhat by the fact that it had no qualms selling ships to Okeer in the first place. John shook his head at the injustice of it.

Upon entering the ship the Green Lantern Officer enacted Phase Two: Ensuring the neutralization of the flagship in the event of failure to apprehend the target. The Warlord could not be allowed to continue his rampage. To this end Stewart had identified structural weaknesses in the ship's design and had brought along several high-yield demolition charges to exploit them. While his architectural degree was limited to terrestrial buildings, he had learned enough of ship design during his years wearing the Glowing Green to be deeply offended at the sheer number of flaws in the ship's construction. The vessel was clearly designed purely with raw firepower in mind and the maintenance crews would have to work constantly just to keep the thing from blowing up of its own accord. A few charges in the right places would weaken the ship's skeletal structure enough that the vessel would shake itself apart the second it fired its primary armament. That done, Stewart commanded his ring to send a discreet, coded message into space.

With that accomplished Stewart enacted Phase Three: the location and capture of Warlord Okeer. He used his ring to discreetly hack into the ship's computer systems and looked for anything that would give him clues as to the Warlord's current location. Remembering that some members of the Brass back home liked to make surprise inspections, the Sniper turned Police Officer scanned for personal communications between crew members and, sure enough, found a message from an engineer warning one of his friends that he had seen the Warlord making his way to the Deck 5 Starboard Plasma Cannon Control Center and that said friend should be ready for an inspection from the often violently strict CO.

After dodging security and using maintenance passages he had memorized from the ship's blueprints, Stewart found himself in a room adjacent to the Control Center in question. Using his ring to tap into the local security net, Stewart waited until the Warlord entered the room and began roaring at his subordinates before even having time to see if they were deficient in any way. Stewart had seen officers like that back on earth, bullies who had attained positions of power and decided to make themselves feel big by torturing those who couldn't fight back. As if John didn't already have enough reasons to enjoy bringing this scumbag in. He smiled as he moved into the hallway, positioned himself in front of the door, and channeled his will into the form of a green battering ram .

The door to the Weapons Control Center suddenly exploded inward, the perfectly square piece of solid metal slamming into the Warlord's personal guard with the force of an artillery strike. Had they not been wearing state-of-the art powered armor they would have been obliterated. As it was, they were simply severely injured and in no way able to prevent the Green Lantern Officer from disabling their suits with a few precise shots from his intricately detailed rifle construct. The Warlord roared in rage as the engineers scrambled away in terror. He drew his weapon, an enormous energy staff, and swung it with all of his might at the intruder that dared attack him in his own ship. Stewart deflected the blow with a medieval knight-style shield construct. This kind of fighting was not familiar to John, his nation having been founded long after it had been rendered obsolete by firearms, but the high tech nature of the Warlord's weapon combined with the alien's brute strength and the close quarters meant that such innovations did not matter very much just then. John rapidly found himself on the defensive. There was not time to even form a weapon of his own as his enemy's relentless assault meant that every second of time and every scrap of reflexes he had were taken up in blocking or dodging Okeer's blows.

 _Think, Marine!_ John shouted to himself. _You have one of the most powerful weapons in the galaxy at your command. All you need to do is figure out how to utilize it! Just think about..._ John smiled again as he willed his "shield" to move forward at several hundred kilometers per hour, blasting through the Warlord's block and smashing him into the wall with enough force to leave an alien-shaped depression in the metal. Not the most elegant of solutions, but it got the job done. Stewart checked his vitals, saw he was still alive, and placed some specialized restraints upon the Warlord. He could have made a construct to restrain him, but he didn't want to risk the maniac getting free due to a momentary loss of concentration. The immediate threat dealt with, John allowed himself a moment to shake his head at his own foolishness. Sometimes over-thinking a move could be as dangerous as under-thinking it.

With Phase Three completed, the Officer mover to Phase Four: Extraction. Stewart's ring informed him that an alarm had been sent and that several security teams were closing on his location. With no time to lose, the Green Lantern grabbed his prisoner with his ring and used an enormous drill construct to brute force his way through several decks and into space. He sent another coded message into space and immediately set off toward the edge of the fleet's formation, only mildly concerned as every ship within it oriented themselves toward him and some began pursuit. Ordinarily John would have counted on his high profile prisoner to protect him, but some enterprising subordinate may decide now was a good time to usurp the Warlord. His concerns were justified as his ring notified him of several capital ship-grade weapons locking onto him. Stewart might have become genuinely worried were it not for the fleet of warships that had suddenly come out of hyperspace on the other side of Okeer's armada and begun firing on the Warlord's blind-sided forces.

Stewart smiled again. Right on time. It had taken some doing to convince the neighboring planetary systems to commit their forces to this attack. Only when they were reasonably sure that Stewart would be able to remove the enemy's leadership and manipulate them into a vulnerable formation did they agree to commit their forces to this operation. As Okeer's fleet wildly reoriented to face this new threat, Stewart decided to tip the balance in his allies' favor by sending the detonation signal to the charges he had placed in the ship. John smiled as the flagship suddenly broke in half from the sheer recoil of its main gun, venting atmosphere and erupting in small explosions as various systems failed. That settled, he was finally able to dedicate enough mental concentration to push himself and his quarry into hyperspace.

While he may have been able to help in the battle, it was important that the Green Lanterns remained a law enforcement agency and not conductors of war. All credit for the destruction of the enemy fleet would go to the friendly military forces and the capture of Okeer would be presented as a fully sanctioned act of law enforcement. Peace would be achieved with minimal ruffling of diplomatic feathers. Still, John could not help thinking about all of the soldiers who would die because he was not there to end the battle sooner.

As John Stewart prepared to enter hibernation for the long trip back to the prison facility, he took satisfaction in the fact that the op had gone so well. Often they were far messier. Particularly when his fellow Earthmen were involved. He grimaced as he imagined the chaos Guy Gardener would have caused. They would have gotten the job done but not as efficiently or discretely, and the local governments would probably not have been informed let alone consulted. He did not mind, as Guy and the others had positive traits not common to soldiers, such as Kyle's boundless optimism or Hal's often unconventional thinking. They were a diverse group and that meant they could adapt to a number of threats. John hoped that would be enough if something bigger than a hopped-up thug came knocking at their door.


End file.
